A Place Called Home
by aikotters
Summary: In 1995, Meiko finds her favorite aunt in tears. In 1999, she finds a strange book in her room. In 2002, someone comes to retrieve that book again. It is 2005, her distant cousin is on the news and her aunt is in the hospital with four children and there's a cat trying to kill Meiko herself.
1. Prologue

_Warnings: Character death, grief, emotional neglect_

* * *

Prologue – The Fourth Death

In 1995, Meiko was related to everyone in the world.

Not really, but she knew people. She knew them everywhere. Sometimes it felt like everywhere she looked, they knew her. So she knew everyone who came to her door by name and face, and at the age of six, as far as she was concerned, she knew them all.

So she knew her auntie more closely than others, by her slightly heavier steps, by the way her knuckles were sometimes swelled up like bee stings after school, how she was barely an auntie and more of an estranged (she likes that word, estranged) big sister except Hime-chan would never be that way. Meiko's father liked her after all.

That was a thought for when things were cloudier and clearer by hindsight in turns. But it was mostly because Hime-chan was smart and strong and funny. Seeing her cry was strange. It was usually from things like pulling n her hair too hard or chopping onions.

So seeing her in a huddled ball on the wooden floor, staring outside like a doll, was like seeing the end of the world.

"Hime-chan?" She had dropped her ball, she remembered, eager to play with her because Hime kicked the ball at just the right strength. She hadn't responded, hadn't spoken a single word or even lifted her head. "Hime-chan?" Her voice faltered a little. This made a lump rise in her throat. "What's wrong?"

No vocal answer. But the longer arm looped to wrap around her shoulder and pull her close, still trembling.

Okay this she understood. She understood this kind of sadness, bone deep and too tough on your skin and bones that made describing it impossible, impenetrable. So Meiko hunkered down and hung on for a while, listening to her auntie's body shudder and quake with sobs. It seemed to last forever.

Then a larger, steady hand shook Meiko a little. She opened her eyes. It was strangely cold this morning… afternoon? _What time is it? _She sat up straight.

"It's all dark!" It was practically _nighttime_.

"You took a nap with Auntie, kiddo," teased a voice to her right. She looked to the side, saw grey hair and a sling with a tuft of blue poking out from one side. "It's cold out here."

"Ryuji!-nii!"

Maki did not stir. She was quiet now, and her grip on Meiko's waist a little easier. That said, her eyes were open a little. She managed a smile.

"Auntie." Meiko said the word as loud as dared. "Are you okay now?"

She let out a wet snort, sad and tired and not young at all. "No, but I'll be all right. Don't worry, Meiko."

_Don't worry, Meiko. _They always said that, as if they can stop her from worrying, as if it makes a difference if she doesn't. It wasn't like she could help.

Still she didn't say anything against it. Her legs were starting to hurt and she was still feeling kind of tired, she realized. Her eyes were starting to droop again anyway.

Then she let out a squeak, very much awake as her aunt swung her up to carry her. "Come on, up with you." She was smiling now, a little, a little more as they walked. "Before you catch a cold."

"You'll catch one first! You don't have any sleeves!"

Maki said nothing, but she felt better, felt closer, more alive. "Idiots can't catch colds, Meimei."

"You're not an idiot either!"

Maki tweaked her nose and did not counter this. Meiko beamed, victory in her blood.

Meiko sank into her bed gleefully the second she was on it. She scrambled to get under the blankets. It was way too cold for September! Maki watched her, the faintest, most exhausted smile on her face. Once certain that Meiko was comfortable in her bed, Maki turned to leave. As she did so, her eyes saw something sitting innocuously on the small writing desk.

"Did your dad find book at another sale?" Maki lifted the book so Meiko could see the cover, all spindling lines and symbols that Meiko had never seen before.

Meiko could also barely see them with her glasses off and her head on the pillow anyway. Still, she would never leave a book on her desk. That was for messy people. "I dunno! Never seen that before."

She watched Hime-chan's hair move. "Mind if I hold onto it then for a bit? I can always read it to you later."

"Keep it," Meiko said, voice slurring as she started to really sink under her covers.

She fell asleep to gentle fingers carding through her hair and a sad little humming sound that occasionally hitched with sobs. Meiko thought about it, but not very long.

* * *

In 1999, Meiko was haunted for the very first time.

It was like typical hauntings, of course. Rattling doors, glasses falling, ominous wind. Scary stuff.

It was more of a problem for her mother than her. All Meiko had to do to escape was go outside. For some reason the ghost refused to go outside. Or interrupt her sleep. Once in a while the fridge would be found left open and yet there would be no crumbs.

It was almost like they were being haunted by something with manners. Weird.

She had thought the ghost had manners anyway.

Meiko was normally a rather heavy sleeper. Case in point, her relatives were puttering about even though it was super dark and late and she had remained fast asleep until there had been a scream so loud it couldn't possibly have been slept through.

And it was of course, coming from her other cousin.

It wasn't a pain scream; it was a terror scream. But then again, Ryuji tended to think they were the same considering he took being "big brother" to an all new level of overbearing. Even Meiko's dad thought it was a bit much and it had been a tooth and nail fight with her mom to let her go running in the trees. Without thinking, Meiko rolled over and squeezed her eyes shut again. She had school tomorrow, she needed to _sleep._

Then her cousin screamed again, and this time it was a lot closer to her door. Therefore, Meiko could hear exactly what the girl said. "Monster!"

Monster? Meiko opened her eyes, grabbed her glasses and rolled out of bed. What monster?

With the appropriate lack of caution for a young girl, Meiko burst from her room, chasing the adventure full force. She entered the living room to find Ryuji looking all around the room as something black swirled under the floor, over the floorboards at the same time. His sister was perched on the couch, practically a statue.

"Don't get any closer!" Ryuji barked. Meiko only looked at him in bafflement. IT wasn't a bug or anything, it didn't look like it was doing anything.

Then the shadow let out a _hiss. _It rose up slowly from the ground and slowly turned in mid-air, white eyes -were those really eyes?- staring into her own.

_Book?_ It said.

"Book?" Meiko repeated. "I have a lot of books."

_The Book._

"What book? I can go get it!"

"Stop trying to reason with it!"

The shadowy… thing? Maybe it really was a ghost! Hissed again and began to wobble and shift. It reared up and shot towards her like an arrow.

"Look out!"

Meiko yelped and slid to the floor, dodging the ghost that vanished into the wall.

The room was silent for a moment. Then a loud bang resounded through the house. Meiko bolted to her room. It was empty, but everything was tossed around, including a book that Meiko could not remember ever getting. It seemed innocent on the floor, spine cracked, flopped uselessly on the pages. But as Meiko moved over and tried to pick it up, her fingers started to burn. She yelped and dropped it, right as Ryuji reached her. But there was no more movement. No more fear. No more screaming. Just a strange book and her aching hand.

And a messy room, but that was still pretty normal. But ever since then, it felt like she was being watched.

* * *

There was a car crash in fall of 2000. There was a very bad incident with a truck and a group of cars. It should have meant nothing to Meiko. It was far from home in a place she had never really been. It should have just been something on the news to make her cry.

And yet there she was in this strange city area she didn't want to be in.

She was standing at a funeral for four people, standing next to a little boy with purple hair and a baby face that was too short to be right and next to Ryuji. There was no spoiled Erika. Erika was swathed in white and crying because everything was loud and painful and wrong and something was her fault and her big cousin just looked sad and angry and old beside her. And though it was wrong, though it was very very wrong and inappropriate, she reached over and took his burly hand in her own.

Ryuji looked down at her and smiled wetly. And it twisted his face a little less hard and so she clutched tighter as they walked.

And Hime-chan met them at the end of it, holding a little ceramic vase and incense.

"He loves the honeysuckle kind," she said to Ryuji, dressed in her high school uniform and slumping at the weight of the jacket. His fingers trembled when he took it, but he nodded, bracing, strong, cold.

It was only now that Meiko could remember, could see the faint lines of black thread at the elbows, the extra wornness of her bag.

"Don't be proud, Ryuji-kun," Hime-chan said gently. And then she was gone, back to a boy her age with messy black hair in a suit a size too big and eyes softer than dog fur.

Ryuji's frown only seemed to sink further, too big and serious and even a little scary. Meiko reached out and took his hand again.

She watched his expression fall apart and not even Erika's old sobbing could bring it up again.

* * *

It was 2002 when she met her ghost again.

By now Meiko was a little too big to climb trees with help, too big to chase after her father's car when it left or to be babysat by anyone. She was too old to walk to school without friends and since nothing was happening, no matter how honestly she smiled or how interested she was in other things, no one slid along.

The move to Odaiba was almost a dream, even though, much to her disappointment, there was no backyard the size of the town to get lost in. There were no adventures that took people up the mountains and buried them in dirt. It was all contained.

She could not escape her father here.

Not that she had to try very hard. He was around even less than he had been before. Were fathers not supposed to smile, she wondered? Were they supposed to look at you strangely, like you were the enigma and not them? Her mother hadn't changed at all, really. She always smiled, cooked plenty of food. She invited people over and pestered Ryuji and Erika to spend less time at that café of theirs because computers weren't as important as people.

But father had only backed off even more. Disappeared into work all the harder.

"It's just more expensive to be here so he needs more hours," her mother would say.

But even she had no explanation for the profiles left on the table early in the morning, the muttering about children she saw in passing at school and nowhere else. There was no explanation for how long he was working, nor the meals left on the table for him every morning and night. Or the way he would look at her sometimes when he was home.

Expectant.

Meiko took to ignoring it. She had class and the computers were often acting up. She had enough to focus on. Her classmates were only a little bit of help.

Except August 3rd rolled by and she couldn't concentrate on those things. No matter how interesting literature might have been. She ended up wandering out of the apartment (another awful change, she missed the great house with its endless green) and into the city, that strange old forgotten book she'd left a single bookmark in the pages of to mark where it had fallen open. She still had no idea what it meant but no one seemed to (except Hime-chan seemed _afraid of it_ for some reason) so she wasn't going to do too much research into it by herself. So she carried it instead, wandering in the heat, stopping once to spend some money on an ice pop and a sandwich, before she found herself at Fuji TV station.

There was a group ahead of her. One of them held a bouquet of red flowers. Meiko watched and, from the marrow of her bones, _curiosity _burned. What were they doing there? What was going on?

Of course, three years ago, the sky had been full of islands and rivers, landmasses and seas and monsters. She had woken up on the floor of a cold, lit up building alone and seen-

Seen a rainbow full of children, waving and calling down to the world below.

She had wondered what had happened to them.

And now, squinting a little beneath the last of her ice pop, she knew. They were alive. They were here. They could be related to the book even. Maybe she could ask.

But she didn't ask. The greeting didn't even make it out of her mouth as they disappeared up into the elevator. The city had made her quiet and thoughtful and subtle where she had been outright. IT was nothing to be proud of really.

So, she watched them go up the stairs. And, after a good few minutes, she went after them.

None of them saw or heard her of course, and she wouldn't have done it any other time. But as they had been so sober and carrying mourning flowers, she hadn't been able to help but stay quiet and follow. Because the monsters had been scary at the time, searching for someone and only held back by that alone. She'd… cowered then. And, Meiko was realizing, she would cower now.

The elevator dinged open, but everyone was absorbed in whatever was happening by the window. Her book vibrated in her arms again, and Meiko dropped it. The book fell open without a sound, pages flipping as though the air conditioner was on. It stopped at one point, on blank pages. She stared at it, not frightened exactly, but there was a swooping sensation in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't identify. Her eyes went wide as writing began to scrawl down the page.

_"Stay where you are."_

Meiko made to shift, but the page turned.

_"Don't move."_

Now she was afraid. But she did as they wanted. She shook all over, feeling her food creeping up her throat.

Another page turn. _"You have nothing to fear."_

That was a laugh. There was everything to fear.

She didn't know how long she had stood there, face pale, world full of her thumping heart. Then a quiet voice spoke.

"It's been a while."

She wanted to jump, really, but she couldn't move even now.

"They're gone now," the voice continued. "You can move."

Her shoulders sagged and Meiko sank to the floor, breathing hard.

"I'm sorry about that, but… I merely wished to speak in private. I wanted to thank you. You took wonderful care of my book."

"Who ah-are you?" she stuttered out.

They made a sound of confusion and then laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry."

The speaker stepped through the desk she had been hidden behind, revealing a relatively short man with grey skin. At first glance, he reminded her of the stories of magicians her aunt had read between homework assignments, but at the same time, he also reminded her of a scarecrow.

He was a ghost scarecrow.

She had no idea how to take that.

"I am Wizarmon," he said, bowing a little. "As you can see, I'm in a rather… unpleasant situation here. I can't return to life, but I also cannot leave either. And that book you have may be able to help me."

"What happened to you?" Meiko asked, finding her proper voice.

The man seemed to smile with his stitched mouth. "I protected someone I treasured with my life, is all. I repaid a debt she had left me."

"I… I see…" Then she remembered. "You tried to get the book before!"

He smiled again. "I did, yes. It was then I realized I couldn't touch it, and left it with you. I can do a little more now, but I need your help to accomplish this."

"Accomplish what?"

The warm expression turned grave. "Either this forbidden book I stole brings me back to life, or I pass on to reincarnation. And either event needs to happen soon. Or… Saving my friend won't have had any meaning." He lifted his head to lock eyes with Meiko. "I can not allow that to be the case. She – Tailmon – warmed up so much in those few hours… I refuse to let that be taken from her. Will you help me?"

She didn't answer at first, so he added. "In return… I don't know what I can provide but, at the very least I… I will support you as a friend, as I-"

"I'll do it!"

He blinked. "I… you will?"

The girl smiled almost to herself. "I'd like a new friend. The city's too big for one person you see."

And as she spoke those words, something soft and blue clattered to the floor beside them, as if someone had been waiting for this moment.

(They had been.)

"I'm Mochizuki Meiko," she said with a small bow from her waist. "It's nice to meet you, Wizarmon."

"Likewise," he agreed. "Soon, perhaps, you'll be able to shake my hand."

The girl laughed and for the first time since he had died, the Digimon felt warmth in his chest.

* * *

_A/N:_ This was supposed to be something way different but that original idea spiraled out of control so I scrapped it and went with this one instead. Thanks for waiting!

Challenges: Epic Masterclass interseason 5, three sided box, mega prompts word 11, interseason boot camp - nauseating


	2. Chapter 1

_Warnings: emotional pain, blood_

* * *

**Chapter One - The Blank Pages**

"Meiko-chan."

Nishijima Daigo looked at her with disappointment and a frown and she quailed in her seat.

It was 2005. She was in high school. And this wasn't the first time he had looked at her with some kind of expectation and she hadn't matched it, but that was more because she was clumsy. Normally, it had nothing to do with secret keeping or monsters or anything. She didn't even have many friends, though the special children, the children who Wizarmon whispered about in her shadow, did talk to her often and she talked to them. She hadn't found the courage to approach the girl with the cat, and this filled Wizarmon with relief each time she turned back.

(I'm a bit of a coward, he would tell her every time, but she doubted it every time. He wasn't her after all.)

But of course, inevitably, after three years of keeping it to herself despite the many, many times she had seen monsters in real life, she'd been caught out stealing from her Auntie Maki. She'd almost succeeded too, if only Daigo hadn't come to her house. Not Uncle Daigo yet because her auntie was a lot of closed off things and what happened to her parents had happened badly and nothing was letting her feel better. Not the people she spoke to, the medicine she took to let her breathe. Nothing.

"Why did I catch you stealing from Hime-chan?"

Meiko made a face. "I wasn't stealing from Hime-chan," she said with the best eye contact she could muster and trying not to sound like an errant child. "I let her borrow it when I was little and I wanted it back for a bit." By a bit, she meant eternity but three years of lying to her mother about sharing snacks with non-existent classmates and that the stray cats ate the extra leftovers rather than Wizarmon liked her mom's food and was very neat and tidy about it.

He still looked unimpressed. "And why did you come and get it when she told both of us over the phone she'd be working late so I could grade papers in peace and not to come over?"

Meiko let out a sigh. She still couldn't handle him being one of the youngest teachers ever. "Because I thought you'd be late?" she offered. "I really was just going to take it home and bring it back when I was done."

_I'm not sure you're helping your case here…_

It wouldn't be an issue if he'd just gone through the doorway and gotten it himself. But apparently he couldn't touch things for very long when he did and the book wouldn't go through with him fast enough. So.

_I really am sorry._

She wasn't mad at him, not really. Or at Daigo. This was just… very inconvenient. She didn't like things being inconvenient or out of place. Dad didn't like that.

She, at sixteen, was really struggling to understand why he'd bothered to have a child, or work with children. Money or knowledge probably, for his own sake.

That sounded like dad.

Daigo sighed. "All right, fine. I've really got to grade these. But you have to give it back to Hime-chan. While I'm here to see it."

Meiko shrank in her spot. She didn't mind doing it, but the implication here was that she would have to admit she'd stolen the book in the first place, without asking or anything. She… didn't want to do that either.

But this was to help Wizarmon, so she swallowed and nodded. "Okay, sorry Uncle."

His face softened at once, eyebrows loosening and shoulders slumping. "I'm not your uncle yet, Mei-mei."

"No but you might as well be."

Daigo smiled a bit. "Maybe someday. Now scoot." He waved a hand. "I really do have to grade this work and I hate working in the office."

Meiko escaped all too gratefully, book in hand and Wizarmon finally able to open his eyes.

_That was terrible,_ he said quietly, walking beside her in mimicry of her shadow. He usually stayed there or in the shadows of her room, sneaking her books onto the floor to turn them to various pages. Her mother or various family members wouldn't think anything of it. Not that Meiko cared much, everyone had a quirk or two.

"It worked out," Meiko said, a bit of defensiveness in her voice. "We've got the book now."

Which, that it had taken so long was due to her own nerves, digital world… things and avoiding the problem than anything. There had been, in Wizarmon's words, bigger things to worry about than his lack of a body.

_We do,_ he agreed in that genial voice. _And that's enough._

Three years with Wizarmon had caused his eternally gentle voice to grow on her. It was a bit monotonous, but it didn't hold a candle to her father. So she could pretend it was fine.

"Now what?" She asked, exiting the apartment building.

_Now,_ he said. _We go home and read it._

Something in her heart warmed at him calling her apartment with her mom, home. "That sounds good to me."

Home wasn't far. Home was near the Yagamis, two Chosen Children, and Wizarmon's dear friend Tailmon. Neither of them interacted with her more than a casual passing by in the walkways and at school, which was a relief because those were usually the times when Wizarmon was not with her and she didn't want to be present for that.

Meiko didn't hurry however. It was nice out and Wizarmon didn't get much time outside.

This was her first mistake.

Her second mistake was stopping at the store for ice cream. She got more than two, one was for Wizarmon to enjoy, one for herself, and a few for cousins and their hacking friends. There was supposedly this new wave internet thing in the works that he was working on (or hacking in he was never very specific and Erika hardly talked to anyone anymore, or went outside that closet, or anything. She wished someone would explain what was going on just once.) and it helped him profit off of his internet cafe and it was really neat and Meiko understood none of it. She did understand that every time she brought ice cream, everyone cheered up, so she could do that.

Except, when she got to the building, none of them were in sight. There were a few people at the computers but there always were. None of the blue jackets that she'd secretly hoped she'd get to wear when she got a bit older in sight barring the one hung at a coat stand. The receptionist waved.

"Meiko-chan!" Meiko went to her in response, grinning herself. She was admittedly, a little flush from victory. Soon, she'd be home and she'd have Wizarmon and she-

Well, she wasn't entirely sure what would happen next but she knew that something was hers for the taking, if she just reached for it. That was her hope anyway. She needed something.

Anything.

"Yuri-san," Meiko said, passing her one of the ice creams. "Is anyone in today?"

The woman sighed. "Erika-chan's in her room, but that doesn't mean much. Poor Keisuke-kun's been running around on the net like a bat out of hell. They work their gopher too hard."

_And yet she calls him a gopher anyway…_

Meiko didn't laugh. "Well, she has a mini-fridge in there, I'll just go ahead and drop these off with her."

"The fact that any of you can go in there and not get your face mauled off by her plush keyboard is beyond me," said Yuri with a soft huff. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

Meiko did laugh at that, if only because that was absurd. Erika? Her cousin? Her moody, fragile cousin? She was more likely to hurt herself first.

She reached the former storage closet and knocked. There was silence barring a whir of monitors and electronics and a suddenly hushed voice.

"Erika?" Meiko began. "It's Meiko. I have ice cream."

Another pause. Then the click of a lock.

Meiko understood Erika's like of privacy. She didn't think locking herself in was healthy though. Then she opened the door and was immediately dragged inside and latched onto, much tighter than usual. "Erika?"

Erika sniffled and Meiko nearly dropped the bag and exploded ice cream everywhere in her haste to hug her cousin as tight as she could before the girl burst into wailing sobs.

"Erika…" she murmured, completely at a loss.

Erika had stopped being a crybaby long ago. The inevitability of her condition, the overexertion on her brain, the tension of anything was enough to make her fragile equilibrium fall apart nearly instantaneously if she wasn't careful.

Naturally, this led to Ryuji being a bigger control freak than he had ever been in his life and to have actual grey hairs before the age of twenty.

So to see Erika crying at all, let alone without Ryuji guarding the door like some kind of rottweiler, sent off so many alarm bells, she almost forgot Wizarmon was moving around in her shadow.

"Onii-chan…" Erika was whimpering. "He…"

Meiko's alarm bells got louder and she almost missed the timid little voice saying, "Erika…" from the computer screen. A small set of green pixels was moving back and forth on one of her many monitors.

The girl whipped around. "You were supposed to be quiet," she hissed, walls up, cat mode activated.

The little green thing quailed. "But Erika…" It almost sounded like it was saying "Ewika", which was adorable. "There's another digimon in here…"

Meiko paled. This was not how she'd wanted this to come up.

_Apologies…_

_It's fine,_ she said before he could feel too bad. _We'd have been found out anyway. _"Ah… Erika… why don't we start at the beginning? I'll tell you everything and you can tell me everything."

For a moment, the slightly younger girl looked ready to protest, a thick scowl at the ready. But then her shoulders slumped and she looked much too tired to try.

"All right…"

Meiko quickly explained the book, the ghost, the day in 2002 and her offer to help said Wizarmon, but unable to reach Maki very much for the past few years made it difficult, along with her weird hours and general… Hime-auntiness.

"Let me see the book," Erika demanded when she was finished. "I could do this much faster than you."

Wizarmon's form ruffled at her back but Meiko was used to Erika and her general thirst for knowledge and hunger and immediate assumption that she was the smartest person in the room, in a desperation to overcome the brother who acted like he was the most qualified person in the room because he had no brain cells in that hacker head of his.

So, Meiko, who would always cow to her father, did not cow to Erika's general spoiledness. "After you tell me what's going on here."

The girl scowled, but did not cry again. She wished she would. It was probably better for whatever was wrong with her brain. "There's not much to talk about. He wanted to hack EDEN… the full server, the deeper servers, again. Like with Arata-san and Judes or something. Or he's supposed to watch them, he wouldn't tell me."

"He never tells anyone anything," Meiko agreed and Erika nodded, eyes sparkling at being heard. "So…"

"I'm not sure of all of the details. Have you heard of EDEN syndrome?"

"No…? But I only have a regular computer, not one of the touch ones you have."

Technology had changed so much since 1995…

Erika nodded. "Sometimes, when people log into EDEN, their mental data gets disconnected and they can't log back out."

Meiko immediately could imagine it. A whole set of breathing bodies trapped and unmoving and their data lost in the stream of it. "Oh gods…"

"Yes." Erika shivered. "According to Keisuke, Chitose was also down there and he got it and now my brother won't leave his room or log out. He just stays down there and broods. Wormmon's able to go and check on him but that's only because he's too out of it to see them."

That… wasn't like Ryuji. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Meiko saw her jaw clench, her eyes narrow and her mouth open to shortly tell her where to shove her concern. But then she sagged and said, "Keisuke will be back to take me shortly. I can take myself though now. I've been walking much better lately."

Meiko nodded. "Keisuke-kun sounds kind."

"Unfortunately he is and I haven't figured out how to get rid of him."

Her lips quirked as she said that, so Meiko was kind enough not to tease her.

Then Erika held out her hand. "Book. Now."

Meiko sighed and handed it to her, feeling Wizarmon twitch as she did.

_She's smarter than me, _Meiko told him. _She'll figure this out much faster than I ever could._

_Yes but… I lost my entire livelihood for that book. You must understand if I… am weary of losing it._

_Sure. But I trust Erika and I won't leave until we get it back._

… _Thank you Meiko._

Meiko nodded and watched.

"Is that guy telepathic," Erika asked without looking.

Meiko nodded again, noticing her pausing and turning the page from diagrams to paragraphs and back again. "How are you reading that?"

"Wormmon showed me how so I showed them how to hack." Her keyboard on the other side, she was already typing with her right hand as she turned with her left. "The words here, it's in this language called digimoji, which you can basically convert to hiragana and katakana. It's easy to understand once you know that conversion."

Meiko wasn't even going to bring up that explanation skipped how you figured that out in the first place. She liked her ears where they were.

"Are you making a copy of that book?"

"Kind of. There's a reason he got kicked out for having it, right?"

Meiko waited for the response and translated, "Only Wisemon and their line are capable of comprehending the secrets of the Book without devolving to insanity and even Wisemon are suspect to it."

"... Hm." Erika paused for just a moment. Then she shrugged. "I'm not sane anyway. What's the worst it could do, fix me?"

And she went right back to it.

Meiko settled back on the pillows to wait.

She awoke three hours later to her cousin shaking her, face too pale, eyes too wide.

"What?" she managed to say. "What, what is it?"

"I got it," Erika whispered, voice full of triumph. "So I went to check the news, to breathe. It's… It's Auntie Hime and-"

"What's wrong with Auntie Hime?" Meiko burst up, glasses askew, brain aching, a thrumming of guilt in her veins.

Erika pointed silently to the monitor, where the news showed her and four children. She recognized three of them from that day in the tv station. Each of them on oxygen masks, blood trailing into the stretcher fabric. Horror and pain filled her stomach and Meiko almost vomited up her ice cream.

Erika passed her a bucket, freshly cleaned which meant freshly used and she threw up in it at the words,

"Digital Menaces harming children."

"No," she heaved. "No, no no, that's not true that's not what it _is_. They don't understand."

"Of course they don't," Erika told her, not condescending for once. "This is what humans are. This is what people are. They're _different _from digimon."

There was something there, something a right minded Meiko would want to ask about. But as she wiped her mouth, _determination _pooled into her guts. "Erika, let's help Wizarmon. Then we can go to the hospital, hide your stuff. It'll look better."

"Hidden, convenient." Erika nodded. "Help me clean up."

She did, creating an open, if dusty space on a usually fluffy floor.

Erika opened the book. She didn't chant exactly but she placed her hand on the page and ran her fingers over the pages, the lines, the little squiggling lines. Then she started to speak. The air filled with a low hum of electricity, crackling dangerously from computer tower to monitor to wire to storage to things ready to burn.

But nothing burned. Instead, something like the ripping of a page from under her feet tingled down the heels of Meiko's feet and her body began to _thrum._ A steady beat slower than her heart but faster than the resting drumbeat coursed up her skin in a vibration. Her fingers closed around the small device that had carried her this far these three years.

And power began to rise.

She stared off into space and Erika continued, steady, cheeks flushed with life, with herself was glowing, awash with something great and somehow terrible.

And then with a final tear, the thing that had held her, carried her, tore free.

Then, just as quickly something else, unseen, something you could never see and only try to her, tied back around her, in every cell, in every existence and moment and everything she could have been and would have been and might be. He was not a part of her shadow, he was a part of everything she was and everything she might be and everything necessary in her and was never leaving ever.

And she started to cry the second it was over.

His thin, straw arms wrapped around her from behind, gentle and warm and crackling with something undefinable.

"Thank you Meiko," he said softly. "You saved me."

"Thank Erika," she managed to say through her tears.

Just as he was about to, the ground shook. The world wavered and Erika started _screaming._


End file.
